The Last Slayer
by Rashelleah95
Summary: Begins 12 years post-finale, disregarding all events of the comics. Buffy's daughter struggles with a lot-having a roof over her head, connecting with others, and family tragedy that seems to follow wherever she goes. She just wants to know the truth about her family, and the events that tore them apart. Please read and review!
1. Chapter 1

I can say this with complete certainty:

My mother didn't want me.

To be honest, it's less hurtful than you might think. I'm really relieved that she didn't raise me, because it would have been a complete disaster.

She wasn't the mothering type, she was the mastering type. During the few years she looked after my aunt after their mom died, all kinds of bad stuff kept happening. And that was before the entire town fell in.

I spent most of my early childhood with Aunt Willow and her wife Kennedy. They were the first of my mother's close friends to retire, so they looked after me for a few years. Aunt Dawn got married when I was six, so I lived with her and Uncle Xander until they had their first kid. After that, I bounced around between members of the old gang, and by the time I was sixteen, I'd lived all over the world.

Most of my mother's friends wanted to retire early, they just wanted a normal life. She didn't.

I've met my mom twice that I can remember. The first time, I was eleven. She came over for coffee in the afternoon on a Friday, and she and Dawn were sitting in the living room when I got home from school.

She looked entirely out of place sitting on Aunt Dawn's old couch, her dark blonde hair pulled back. The room was small but tidy, like the rest of the house. Every piece of furniture was old and used, but in decent condition. She was wearing a black sweater, jeans, and boots. She looked young, for mid-thirties, and well taken care of.

"You're due in April?" She was asking Dawn, smiling. "That's so great, Dawnie." She seized her sister's hand and squeezed it.

"Yeah," Dawn said, a smile coming over her face. "Oh, look, Kate's home."

She turned to me, pursing her lips. She smiled. "Hi, Katherine."

"Baby, this is your mom." Dawn said, standing and taking my hand. "Buffy, this is Kate."

I smiled at her, trying to be happy. At a young age, I had wondered about my mother. Raised by two women, it was no wonder I was curious. They told me she had a demanding job, and couldn't give me the attention that I deserved. Willow had told me that my mom's life couldn't make space for me, that she just wanted me to be safe. It sounded like a line, but I was _four_. How was I supposed to know that?

She hugged me, and I sat beside her on the couch, listening mindlessly to her and Dawn's chatter about the baby for the rest of the afternoon. That day, she left me a gift-wrapped necklace: a silver cross. I hadn't known at the time what it would mean.

"Hey," A woman with long, dark curly hair and full lips was sitting at the breakfast table when I came down one morning months later, reading a small, worn paperback over two bowls of cereal at the table.

"Who're you?" I asked her.

"I'm Faith." She said, dropping her book and looking right at me. "I'm an old friend of Buffy's." She turned towards me. She was long-legged, had long, dark glossy black hair and dark eyes. She was muscled and lithe, with pale skin and a mischievous smile. She wore tight jeans, a brown leather jacket, and combat boots. She looked like she belonged on the cover of a magazine, thought she was slightly grimey. Maybe the cover of a motorcycle magazine. "Dawnie sent for me." She jerked her head towards the chair across from her. "Sit."

I sat in the other chair, and she gestured for me to eat. I took a bite of the dry cereal and looked up at her. She was looking at me with a critical eye, as though she was trying to dismantle me with her eyes. "Sorry," She said, with less than apology in her voice. "You've gotta be used to people staring at you like that, kid." She smirked at me. "The product of true love. Trying to see them both in you."

I didn't understand. Sure, I was used to people staring. A few times a year, Dawn and Xander had friends over for drinks and dessert, and they were always asking about me. Dawn would come into my room, where I was reading, and beckon for me to join them. I would be led around the room, introduced to an endless sea of faces I didn't recognize, and told a million stories about their great times with my mother, none of which ever really sunk in. The gist of most was her bravery, intelligence, her fearlessness. To these people, to her estranged friends, my mother was some great figure of legend. To me, she was just a big question mark. A lot of those people seemed to be full of shit. Like, each of them wanted to share a piece of my mother with me, as if them confiding their stories of high school glory could somehow be built into a solid person, who I could hold in my arms, tuck away in my mind as my mother. All of them had parents, they should have understood the implausibility of that. Except Faith.

She ate a bite of dry cereal and gave me a look. "This is terrible. Why didn't you speak up, kid? Let's go get something better." She smiled at me, and I followed her out the door of Dawn and Xander's tiny house.

Faith took me to a diner, where she opened my eyes to the world. "Where have you been hiding away all of your life, kid?" She asked me, pleasantly. She sipped a mug of black coffee and regarded the menu with some amusement.

"I lived with Willow until I was six, and Dawn ever since." I said, by way of explanation. Dawn always said that I reminded her of my mom when she was in a mood, brief and quiet. It's no wonder I grew up sullen, though, being raised by almost everyone except my parents and the queen of England.

"Well, I see no reason why we haven't met before." Faith said, crabbily. "Well, there was that time I almost killed Dawn. And I think she still holds that time with Xander against me. And I almost killed your grandmother once." Faith smiled. "I liked your grandma, she was one hell of a woman."

"You knew her?" I asked, surprised. I was always bombarded with stories about my mother, but my grandmother was a mystery to me. I only knew that she had gotten sick and died long before I came around. I guess everyone thought that just because I had never met the woman meant that I couldn't miss her. Also, I was pretty sure my grandmother hadn't been all with the demon killing.

"There was a time when I was almost like family." Faith said, her eyes a bit far away. "But, like almost all other parts of my life, I screwed that up thoroughly." Her eyes hardened, coming back to the present, she pushed her hair back from her face and swallowed. "I knew your dad too. I suppose people don't much like to talk to you about him."

"I know almost nothing about him." I admitted.

"You're a little young to hear the whole story yet, but I bet you've heard a lot about Buffy." Faith smiled, wryly.

"Everyone has a story." I said, simply.

"Buff's like that. She inspires loyalty, heroism, love." Faith shook her head, her hair falling in waves over her shoulders again. "Never could learn to do that myself. But I didn't need to. We had her back then."

"What happened to her?" I asked simply, hoping, for the first time in my life, to receive a straightforward answer from this woman who seemed to hate the bullshit as much as I did.

"Something happened to your dad, and it destroyed her." Faith said, simply. "No time for that now, we have to discuss your future."

"What about it?" I asked, totally flummoxed.

"Dawn's having a baby." Faith said, bluntly.

"Yeah, I know." I replied, raising her eyebrows.

"Well, do the math, kid." Faith raised her eyebrows as well, hailing an unshaven waiter with her right hand. With her left hand, she took another deep draft of her coffee. "They live in a two bedroom house. Baby makes three, kid."

"Quit calling me 'kid.'" I said, my mind suddenly spinning. While I had never felt totally at home anywhere that I remembered, Dawn's was the only place I had concrete memories of living and being loved. "Spit it out."

"Dawn needs you off her hands." Faith replied brusquely. "She didn't say it in as many words, but she's due in five months. She and Xander need their space." She turned away from me a minute to speak to the cute waiter. He had dark circles under his eyes, and a square jaw further strengthened by a few days of stubble. She ordered, flirting briefly with the waiter before turning her full attention back to me.

"So, you have a few options." Faith told her, stirring her coffee. "You can go back and live with Willow and Kennedy, who are currently going through a bitter divorce-" She took a sip of her coffee to allow for my surprise. "-You can go live with Andrew, creepy nerd-extraordinaire, in Manhattan, or you can come with me to London to live with Giles." Faith smiled. "Actually, you really have only one option, but I like to give people choices." She shrugged, and leaned in towards me. "What's it gonna be, Kitty?"


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Giles was older than I expected him to be. While I had only heard his name in passing from my mother's friends, the way Faith talked about him, I thought he would be some kind of warrior.

But he was just a greying guy with a beard, in his mid forties, in a wheel chair. He nodded at Faith and smiled at me. "Welcome back, Faith. How are the united states?"

"Pretty much as we left them." Faith told him, leaning down to peck his cheek. She turned around and raised her eyebrows at me. I was standing on the threshold, my suitcase in one hand and an umbrella in the other. I stepped into the apartment self consciously, not looking at either of them. Still, I saw them exchange a look. At twelve, I was pretty good at reading people. It helped that I was uncomfortable talking to pretty much anyone. In a rare moment, Dawn had told me that my disposition was more like my father's than her sister's. It was one of the few details that I knew about him.

"Katherine Summers." Giles cleaned his glasses on his shirt, and looked her over. "Well, you certainly resemble your mother, I'm sure you've been told." He chuckled. "Though you have your father's eyes."

This was news to me. That day, and in days to come, I would often look at my reflection and search for some small piece of the man my mother had loved and her friends feared, but I always only saw myself.

Giles beckoned to me, and Faith dropped her bag on the floor and sat, exhausted in one of the chairs. The apartment had a kind of stuffy, museum-like air. The walls were covered in books, and at either end of the couch were what I would later find to be weapons chests. The coffee table was a trunk where Giles kept his favorite axes. In his old age, Giles had grown more cynical than the women and Xander who had raised me. Maybe that's why he and Faith got along so well.

Giles always called me Katherine. While others, like Faith, called me Kitty or Kate, he had always called me Katherine, for the four years he fed and sheltered me. When I asked him why, he laughed.

"I would think it was obvious." He said, giving me an odd look. In the moments he had reprimanded me, he always seemed the most British. "Katherine is your name. Kate, Kitty? They're cutesifications of a strong name. Besides," He gave me a softer look. "Your mother gave it to you. It's one of the only things she left you, and as much as I can, I'd like to honor her wishes."

"You and Faith always talk about her like- like she's dead." I said. I had often wondered about that.

"That's simply because, to Faith and I, she is." He told her. "I haven't seen her in years, Katherine. She hasn't been herself in years. The girl I watched over, the friend Willow and Xander knew, she doesn't exist anymore."

"How do you know that?" I asked him.

"Because, if there were any of her left, I wouldn't be raising her daughter." He told me, kindly.

Giles died when I was sixteen, and in the four years I knew him he taught me more about the world than anyone else, except for perhaps Faith.

I didn't see the body, I didn't want to. Faith woke me up that morning, yanked me out of bed, burned some eggs for breakfast, and made me put on a black dress. We walked down to the cemetery, both of us silent. Faith had arranged a simple graveside service, and there was a decent turnout. At least, according to Faith. I'd never been to a funeral before. The priest said some things about Giles, which were vaguely religious, and left. Xander, Willow, and a few others I didn't recognize. A short man with spikey brown hair stood beside a taller man with good posture and a military haircut. Another man, looking uncomfortable, stood on his own. He had dark blond hair combed over to one side, and wore an ugly brown suit. Another blond figure stood farther back, in the shadows of the trees. He wore a long dark coat and a hood. I had a lot of time to inspect all of the funeral attendees, not wanting to pay attention to any of the proceedings. Faith told me that going to this was showing my support, honoring him. I didn't want to say anything, but I felt like I was the one who needed support.

A few minutes after the brief ceremony, people began to talk. Faith and I were standing by the grave, and she had her arm over my shoulder. In the only way that mattered, we were the family that he left behind. We were the next of kin.

Faith turned away from me to talk to a few of the people, Xander hugged Faith, and put an arm around a teary Willow.

"Dawnie is so sorry she couldn't come," He said, trying to dry his face without calling attention to his own tears. "We just couldn't get anyone to look after Joey. We have so few friends left . . ." He trailed off, and Faith took his hand.

"I know how much Giles meant to her." She said, her deep voice softer than usual. "If she could have been here, nothing short of the apocalypse would have stopped her." Xander gave Faith a weak smile, and Willow gave a watery chuckle. I knew that they respected Faith, but didn't much like her. There were a lot of stories there I knew none of them would tell me.

"Willow, how are you doing?" Faith put a hand on Willow's arm, giving her a sympathetic look. Willow gave a hiccuping sob, and Faith embraced her awkwardly. I turned away. I did not want to see the woman who raised me cry like a child.

The rest of the mourners gathered around Faith and Xander. The short brown-haired guy greeted Willow and helped pry her off Faith. She allowed him to calm her down, her sobs slowing. The taller guy with the buzzcut approached me, nodding.

"You must be Katherine." He said, raising his eyebrows. Getting a closer look at him, I saw that he had a few scars on his face, around his right eye. Still, they were long ago healed wounds, and he was still handsome in his late thirties. "I, like everyone else who ever wanted to talk to you, knew your mother."

I nodded, and looked him over. "You're that military guy?" I asked.

He nodded. "Pretty much. I'm sorry to meet you on such an occasion, but I'm glad to meet you at all." He offered her his hand. "Finn. I'm sorry for your loss."

I shook his hand, and gave him a nod.

"You Summers women are tough." He said. "If you ever need work, look me up. I've owed your mom a favor for at least a decade now." He cracked a smile at me, before walking over to join the group of adults, who greeted him as "Riley!". He and Xander hugged, and he was absorbed into the ranks.

About ten minutes after the funeral's conclusion, everyone returned to Giles' apartment for drinks. Even I got a beer, underage drinking laws be damned. At that point, everyone was less sad and more convivial, like this funeral made a perfect time for a meeting. Faith introduced me to the people I didn't recognize, the blond guy in the ugly brown suit was Andrew, a rather pedantic individual whom Giles had trained to replace him running the watcher's council. The short man calming Willow was Oz, a werewolf and an old high school friend. I sat and listened to the group talk about an agenda they all seemed to be in on, wondering how I could be at the centre of a group while being so much on the outside of it. Eventually, the meeting devolved into a social gathering, talking about recent events in the community. Andrew went on for far too long about his new trainees on the watcher's council, and Xander had brought pictures of my cousin Joey, now nearly four. Everyone told stories about people they all knew and explained new aspects of their lives, although some where quiet. Willow didn't speak for more than an hour, and just staring at the floor, sipping a glass of wine. After a while, I moved over to sit next to her on the musty couch and leaned against her, holding her hand. We sat there for the rest of the time, until she left me there. I fell asleep about two hours into the event, the combination of the beer and comfortable seat making me drowsy. I slept through the night, and woke early the next morning to the sound of quiet, angry voices.

"If you didn't want to make a scene, why bother showing up at all?" I heard Faith use a tone I had never heard before from her. It was a weird mixture of frustration and confusion, like she wanted to hear what you have to say, but she also wanted to shout at you.

"I don't know! He was important to me. I wanted to be there."

"You've had the chance to be here! You've had seventeen years to be there, but you screwed that up, didn't you? It only matters now to you because he's gone."

"Fine, Faith! Fine, I came to see her."

"Of course you did, you bitch." Faith's voice cracked on the last word, I could hear her expression in her voice. "You come now, not in the last sixteen years of her life. Did you come to some epiphany? Tell me, B, I'd love to hear your big revelation." Faith paused, but there was only silence. "She's an amazing kid, B. I can't understand why you could possibly live without knowing her."

"I'm protecting her." The other said forcefully. "She deserves better than me, Faith. You know what happened, you know that everything that has happened for the last two decades is my fault. I can't look at her, and tell her the truth and watch her hate me."

"She would never hate you, she would forgive you. We all have."

"Now, you haven't." She paused. "And there's a reason. Willow hasn't spoken to me in sixteen years, and I deserve it. Dawn keeps in touch, but Xander and her don't like having me around. Everyone else . . . they see my mistakes. They don't see me anymore. To them, all I am is the horrible things I've done."

"You were young and stupid! We all were. Me especially."

"Faith, they may never love you. But they've forgiven you, they accept you. I forfeited that when I made my choice. I understand what that means. I'll never meet my nephew, I couldn't raise my daughter, I'm pretty sure you're the only one who'll let me past the threshold. That's the price I have to pay for my choices. You did horrible things, but you could be redeemed. I'm lost, Faith. Forever." She paused, and I heard her sigh. "I shouldn't have come."

"No," I heard Faith say, her voice hard and closed off. "You shouldn't have." They exchanged a non-verbal goodbye, and I heard the woman leave the apartment. Faith sighed, and flopped down on the couch across from me. "Hey, kiddo." She said to me, sadly.

"How'd you know I was awake?" I asked.

She gave me a look. "You snore." She and I sat in silence for a while, before she spoke again. "I'm sorry you had to hear that."

"That was her, right?" I said, not having to specify of whom I spoke.

Faith looked tired. "Yep. I didn't think you'd want to talk to her, today of all days." I nodded. She sat up, and sighed again. Slowly, she got up and stretched. "Well, I guess it's time to figure everything out." She held a hand out to me, and I took it. "I'll make you an egg."


End file.
